


Concern

by sparklespiff



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-19
Updated: 2007-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 15:53:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklespiff/pseuds/sparklespiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dan hurts himself playing tennis and winds up in the hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concern

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scoradh](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=scoradh).



  
Dan Taichi loves his headband, he does, because it had been Akutsu-sempai's headband, and Akutsu-sempai is awesome, but people keep telling him it's not practical for tennis. Dan thinks that's silly, because it's the sort of thing that's _meant_ for sports, isn't it? At least until the day it falls down over his eyes in the middle of practice and he slips on a tennis ball and breaks his wrist. Amidst the fuss of worried sempai—he's gone and disrupted practice; that's what annoys him the most—and being driven to the hospital, he is forced to admit that okay, maybe they were right.

*

When Akutsu sees the Yamabuki regulars walking towards the hospital, he thinks that maybe that old bastard Banji finally had a heart attack or something. It's no reason to rearrange his day, no reason at all, but then his phone rings.

"Akutsu-sempai, I'm sorry but I can't come over desu because I'm in the hospital desu, sorry desu, oh I have to go the doctor is here desu!" and the brat hangs up before Akutsu can call him a fucking idiot or even ask him what he's in the damn hospital for. Not that it's entirely surprising that Dan's done something to himself; the kid's an injury waiting to happen, has got absolutely no survival instinct at all—his insistence on hanging around Akutsu is proof of that—and Akutsu's often wondered what Dan would do without Akutsu watching out for him.

Now he knows. It's kind of annoying. But what does it matter what happens to him? It doesn't, Akutsu tells himself, because he doesn't care. He does want to know what happened, though, out of morbid curiosity, so he takes off running. If he's fast enough he can catch up to Sengoku and the others and follow them to where Dan is, and he's Akutsu Jin—of course he's fast enough.

The problem with catching up with the Yamabuki regulars is that it means _catching up with the Yamabuki regulars_, who are not as afraid of him as they should be. He suspects Dan is to blame and makes a mental note to yell at him about it as long as the kid hasn't cracked his head open. That reminds him—he doesn't even know what's _wrong_ with Dan, and he'd ask these fuckers, only that would probably encourage them.

They get to Dan's room and Akutsu sees that it's just a broken wrist, no big deal, only Dan's doing that smiling-too-much thing he only does when he's really upset about something, so Akutsu stays in the doorway while the team crowds around the bed and wonders if he can get away with smoking out the window.

A passing nurse gives him a look, as if she knows what he's thinking, or maybe it's just because of his face or the way he stands, but he's used to those kinds of looks from people. There are only a few who look at him any differently; he can count them on the fingers of his right hand, and one of them is lying a few feet away in a hospital bed.

He doesn't need a cigarette that badly anyway.

Eventually Dan says he's tired desu, but thanks so much for coming desu, and Akutsu's the only one left. That's when Dan starts crying, and Akutsu stands there thinking that he can't deal with this, he's never been able to deal with this, why the fuck did he think he could?

Dan's saying he can't play tennis now, what is he supposed to do desu? and Akutsu can't fix his wrist for him—he contemplates, for just a second, going around and breaking the wrists of every tennis player he can find, but the kid either knows Akutsu way too well or he's been thinking out loud because Dan stops crying long enough to say, "Akutsu-sempai!" in that voice that says he doesn't believe Akutsu-sempai could think such a thing. It's days like this he's not sure if Dan's delusional or _changing him_ so he distracts himself by grabbing the Jello off of Dan's tray and ripping it open for him, grumbling the whole time about incompetent fucks who don't know better than to give someone with a broken fucking wrist something you need two fucking hands to open. That starts him on a rant about the whole medical system ending with, "And they won't fucking let me smoke!" but he keeps his cigarettes in his pocket because he's heard about drugs mixing but hasn't been to biology enough times to know whether or not lighting a cigarette in the room will cause a bad reaction with whatever the fuck they've given Dan and if the kid died it would just be annoying.

That thought makes him uncomfortable, itchy, like there's a monster underneath his skin scratching at him all offended at the fact that he's worried about this goody-goody brat. Dan's not crying any more, so that means Akutsu can leave, so he turns to the door and says, "Try not to crack your head open," but before he's taken two steps, Dan's good hand is reaching out and grabbing Akutsu's wrist.

"The fuck is it now?" Akutsu says, and it's the sort of voice that's made people wet themselves before.

Dan just makes big eyes at him. "Stay desu? Please?"

Akutsu knows a million ways to say no, most of them ending in "and you can fuck right off" but he finds himself calling his mother and telling her not to wait up because Akutsu doesn't trust the hospital fuckers and somebody's got to make sure the kid doesn't manage to hurt himself again, that's all.

Dan smiles like he knows exactly how much of that is true.  



End file.
